By Elissa MacLaughlin
Osier Ridge
When my husband, Bill MacLaughlin, was a student at The Ohio State University, his roommate convinced him to join in applying for a summer job with the Forest Service in the Clearwater National Forest, Idaho.
They got jobs as “brush apes” piling brush for winter burning. The next summer Bill, again, went to Clearwater to work on a Trail crew for the summer. We got married in the early summer of 1958 and being poor college students we decided we would apply to run Osier Ridge lookout tower out of Kelly Creek Ranger Station in Clearwater National Forest for the summer.
Lots of people in the west have been on lookout towers but for a girl in Ohio it was totally unknown. As I approach my 90th birthday in October of 2026 I still treasure the memories of the two summers 1958 and 1959 spent on Osier Ridge Lookout tower out of Kelly Creek Ranger Station, Clearwater National Forest, Idaho.
The tower we came to was about 10 feet higher than the present tower. The original log cabin of the previous platform tower was still on the ground. There were some patches of snow on the road near the tower as the ranger led us up to it. He helped us open the tower, attached the radio and reviewed the alidade again with us.
Then my husband followed him two miles back down the road to a spring that had been piped to fill our two 10-gallon milk cans that would be our water supply which usually lasted us a week or 10 days. I looked at the wood stove, table with two chairs, two cots that folded up to the wall, a bookcase, and a cabinet covered in an oilcloth that contained dishes, pots and pans and cutlery. Mice had gotten in over the winter leaving their droppings everywhere. I wondered what I had gotten myself into! It was very windy that first night and my husband said we could go home if I didn’t want to stay. However, the next morning dawned clear and beautiful. The views were spectacular! We stayed.
Almost every night we would sit on the battery box and watch the sunset. Some nights we could see the Russian satellite, Sputnik 3, tumbling end over end across the night sky. We turned on our radio every morning at 6:00 and reported in—KOC 266 this is Osier Ridge—KOC 266 this is Osier Ridge. About 11:00 in the morning Air Patrol would fly over and would relay to Kelly Creek RS through the radio on Scurvy Mountain—the other lookout in Kelly Creek. At 4:00 we had to take the weather at our weather station below the tower and report temperature, wind and humidity level. Bill would put the flag up every morning and take it down in the evening. Often I would march along banging on the washtub with a beargrass flower head. ( You had to fill in the days with your own fun and little rituals)
Piles of logs 10 to 20 inches in diameter had been left around edges of the clearing below the tower. During the day Bill would have to saw those logs short enough to fit in the wood stove and then split them into smaller pieces and carry them up for the stove or store the extra in the cabin. He would also clear trail outward from the lookout. Since the Clearwater was a wilderness area almost all of the fires were caused by lightning so in the days after a storm with lightning we both would spend most of our time up in the tower. Especially as the summer got dryer toward end of July and August.
My first cooking as a new bride was on the wood stove and my idea of security was a full wood box. I baked bread once a week and tried my hand at huckleberry pies. For my first pie I did not include enough thickener for the very juicy huckleberries and the pie ran over and out the oven door and onto the floor! Early in our first summer I radioed in our grocery order to Kelly Creek RS. This happened about every 2 weeks and when the store out of Missoula delivered to the RS and would be leaving the station would radio us and Bill would drive the 10 miles down to The Cedars campground area and meet the grocery store vehicle and pick up our order.
I don’t know how the order got mixed up but in our first order the store delivered to Bill a whole side of bacon and a 10-12 pound ham! Our refrigeration was a screened orange crate nailed to the bottom of the lookout where the last flight of steps ended. In my new wedding gift cookbook, The Joy of Cooking, the author gives a definition of ETERNITY as a ham and two people! (I have almost never cooked a ham to this day!) Not knowing any better I wrapped the side of bacon in lots of aluminum foil and after a week it totally molded. We didn’t dare put it in our garbage pit so Bill very carefully carried it away from the tower in the opposite direction from the out house and buried it in the woods.
We had gone up on the tower around June 15. About September 5 we woke up to our first snow and we came down from the tower around September 12. As we drove back to Ohio we kept seeing kids with these strange circles around them. The Hula Hoop craze had started that summer and was totally unknown to us!
All through the next fall we kept thinking of the pure, piney air, the spectacular views, the peace and quiet and as we were still poor college students, we decided to apply for our second summer on Osier ridge. This time we brought a larger box of books, more comfortable bedding and a few special canned food items.
The second summer friends from Ohio came out and spent a couple of days camping below the tower bringing COLD beer and steak. Later on the trail crew camped in the cabin below for 5 days. We pooled our food and I had supper ready for them when they came back each day making a larger table using the winter wooden door of the tower. We were on the tower the morning of the Hebgen Lake earthquake in Yellowstone where the landslide in the campground caused 28 fatalities.
It was very early in the morning and the wires of the tower began clanging together. I couldn’t imagine what it was and got up and looked over the catwalk thinking maybe a very large bear was below. When we checked in to Kelly Creek RS at 6am the dispatcher said he had almost been thrown out of his bed. It really shook everyone on the ground but we just swayed and clanged on the tower which gives you an idea of how really sturdy they are!!
The next summer Bill had clinic as he was in Dental School. After that it was the Air Force and then setting up his own practice and moving on in life. We took a western trip with our three children in 1972 and camped on Osier Ridge for a night. Our lookout had been torn down in the early 1960’s and a new lookout tower built just a bit north of the old position. There was a woman living on the tower that summer and she had a propane stove! and was making bagels! Bill died in 1996.
I visited Osier ridge again in 2006 with friends who lived north of Spokane near the Idaho border. There was no one on the tower when we visited and almost to the tower there was a gate across the road. We walked up the last mile and Osier Ridge Lookout was every bit as beautiful, peaceful and quiet as I still remember it to this day.
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